It was a touch quieter this month on the blog. More anon. But tradition is tradition and as a stickler for stability of expectations, here are the five posts that did the best in June.
1. Taken for a Mug
2. Geoffrey Wheatcroft at the End of the Tories
3. From U-Turn to U-Bend
4. What I've Been Reading Recently
5. Local Council By-Elections May 2025
With thin pickings to choose from, the great internet travelling public gravitated toward the substantive pieces. As they always do! In at one, ee have a meditation on Zia Yusuf's resignation from Reform chair, something he rescinded in short order. Demonstrating that the man is still a mug. Number two was my look at another entry in the death-of-the-Tories literature, this time being from someone who partly influenced my book (plug, plug). This was followed by Rachel Reeves's partial retreat on winter fuel allowance. A concession much overshadowed in recent days re: the government's disorderly retreat on cutting disability support. And then we have two of the regular fillers. A look at recent books read, and a round up of May's council by-elections.
What's going on? Normally happy to mouth off on anything and everything political, this month I've missed a short war, two instances of the government's authoritarian overreach, the latest round of Trumpist degeneracy, and the greatest threat to Keir Starmer's authority he's yet faced. Usual grist to the blogging mill you wmight think, but unfortunately I've had to take a rest. It started with the worst cold I've ever had, and immediately dumped upon it was something that has required nearly all of my energy. And because of this, I've given over evenings to winding down and low effort posting. I cannot say when normalcy will resume.
July could bring an upturn in posting, and it might not. Whatever, I'll keep this place ticking over for the forseeable.
6 comments:
Rest up and get well soon. Many thanks for your blog - it is brilliant reading and very valuable.
Sorry to hear of your problems, Phil. I do hope that you carry on blogging - all of your posts are of great interest and often incisive.
Yes, rest as you need, but do keep the blog space active - if you can't actually write out your own thoughts, a simple nod to happening news stories accompanied by a "this looks interesting, and under other circumstances I might have something to say about it" would do fine. Your incisive thoughts are certainly greatly valuable to us, but almost as valuable are the tone which those thoughts have already set for this space.
Get well! I love your blog.
Nandy announces leadership bid by signalling obedience to Israel: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0k7n6kd8yxo
Meanwhile, that new party of the left appears to finally be materialising, around two of the tiny number of people who ever had a chance of successfully founding it.
Its purpose will be to do to Starmer's grotesque parasitic hijacking of Labour what UKIP did to the Tories. It can count on none whatsoever of the media fawning which Toad still enjoys, but (much like certain music acts recently) plenty of Streisand Effect - at least until the media quislings understand that threatening disillusioned leftist voters with the Toad Monster won't be enough, and that they'll have to switch to simply trying to ignore the interloper.
Further into the future, if the shadow state fails to disapprove it into irrelevance, this new party will need excellent defences against enemy capture of its internal apparat. The kind of thing which our blogger could probably help with building, health permitting!
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